Nigel Farage has predicted the Tories will soon descend into “warfare” as a former Conservative minister warned voters about a “Labour elective dictatorship” if they voted for Reform.
The Reform UK leader told The Sunday Telegraph that divisions in the party were only going to “get worse” in the run-up to polling day on 4 July.
Mr Farage was speaking as three polls this week painted a bleak picture for Mr Sunak – and a sunny one for his party.
A poll by Savanta for The Sunday Telegraph showed the Tories down four points to just 21% of the vote – the lowest by that pollster since the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership in early 2019.
In a boost for Mr Farage, the poll showed Reform UK up three points with 13% of the vote.
A separate Survation poll for Best for Britain, published by The Sunday Times, predicted the Tories would win just 72 seats in the next parliament, compared with 456 for Labour.
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The result would give Labour a majority of 262 seats – far surpassing the landslide Labour achieved by Tony Blair in 1997 – while the Liberal Democrats would pick up 56 seats, Reform seven and the Greens one seat.
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Mr Farage, who is set to launch Reform’s manifesto on Monday, told the Sunday Telegraph that “within a week, you watch… there’ll be warfare within the Conservative Party as there was in the run-up to ’97,” referring to the election when Labour last won a landslide under Mr Blair.
He likened the current divisions in the Conservative Party – chiefly over migration – to splits under former Tory prime minister John Major over joining the Euro.
“In the run-up to ’97, John Major said that he was agnostic about joining the Euro,” he told the newspaper.
“Those who wanted to join the Euro did their own manifesto and raised their own money. It was an absolutely split, divided joke and the same will happen in this election. You watch, it’s coming.
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“You will start to see those MPs, who I agree with on most things, start becoming much more vociferous about their stance as opposed to that of the party. The splits are going to get worse. And to them, I will say: ‘Sorry guys, you are just in the wrong party’.”
It comes as former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who is touted as a future Tory leader, gave an interview with the same newspaper saying he “shares the frustrations” of traditional Tory voters who are tempted to defect to Reform – but that they should stick with Mr Sunak’s party to avoiding handing Labour a landslide.
“I have immense sympathy for those natural Conservatives who feel let down and drawn to Reform,” he said.
Image: Robert Jenrick says he has sympathy for those natural Conservatives who feel drawn to Reform
“Not only do I understand their frustrations, I share many of them.
“The tax burden is too high, the criminal justice system too soft and public services too inefficient. My disagreements with the government on immigration policy meant I resigned from cabinet.”
He added: “But, ultimately, a vote for Reform will only give Labour a blank cheque to take our country back to the 1970s.
“Voting Reform cannot be the answer. It can only bring about a government that increases taxes and immigration. Their success can only weaken the conservative movement. The right cannot unify after the election if there is no meaningful force in parliament to coalesce around.
“Our task is to make conservatives across Britain aware of this peril. If we can do that, and make the case that only a vote for the Conservative Party can prevent a calamitous one-party state come 5 July, then we can avert disaster.”
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Nigel Farage has reiterated that he blames the West and NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine – as he confirmed that he previously said he “admired” Vladimir Putin as a statesman.
Speaking to the BBC, the Reform UK leader was asked about his previous comments on Russia and Ukraine.
Asked about Russia’s 2022 invasion, Mr Farage told Nick Robinson that he had been saying since the fall of the Berlin Wall that there would be a war in Ukraine due to the “ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union”.
He said this was giving Mr Putin a reason to tell the Russian people “they’re coming for us again” and go to war.
The Reform leader confirmed his belief the West “provoked” the conflict – but said it was “of course” the Russian president’s “fault”.
Image: Mr Farage was asked about the war in Ukraine. Pic: Reuters
Previous comments Mr Farage made about Mr Putin were also put to him.
He was asked about comments he made in 2014 stating that Mr Putin was the statesman he most admired.
Mr Farage said he disliked the Russian leader – but “I admired him as a political operator because he’s managed to take control” of running the country.
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“This is the nonsense, you know, you can pick any figure, current or historical, and say, you know, did they have good aspects?” he added.
“And if you said, ‘well, they were very talented in one area,’ then suddenly you’re the biggest supporter.”
Conservative candidates – who may be feeling the threat of a Reform surge in the polls – were quick to condemn the Reform leader.
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Home Secretary James Cleverly said Mr Farage was “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine”.
Deputy Conservative chair Jonathan Gullis added that Putin is “certainly not someone who should be admired” – adding that he “unleashed chemical warfare on the streets of our country to commit murder, which endangered further innocent British lives”.
Labour’s shadow defence secretary, John Healey, said: “These are disgraceful comments, which reveal the true face of Nigel Farage: a Putin apologist who should never be trusted with our nation’s security.
“Up until now, there has been a united front amongst Britain’s political leaders in supporting the people of Ukraine against the unprovoked and unjustifiable assault they have suffered at the hands of Vladimir Putin.
“Nigel Farage has put himself outside that united position, and shown that he would rather lick Vladimir Putin’s boots than stand up for the people of Ukraine. That makes him unfit for any political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in parliament.”
The former UKIP leader said this is what “the Conservatives have done with it”.
“If you put me in charge it’d be very, very different,” he claimed, “but of course they didn’t do that, did they?”
On his party’s climate policies, Mr Farage said he wants to “go for nuclear energy” and scrap the existing net zero programme.
He rejected that he was “arguing the science” on climate change, but that “we spend too much time hyperventilating about the problem, rather than thinking practically and logically what we can do”.
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Mr Farage added that King Charles – who was then a prince – made a “very stupid comment” when he said carbon dioxide was a pollutant.
The Reform leader then said that, by deindustrialising, the CO2 production had been sent offshore to places like India and “all we’ve done is to export the emissions”.